A couple of illustrations by Mariaelena Caputi. The first one is about a statue of Alexander Pushkin tied with a rope whose ends are overbearingly pulled to two opposite sides. The second represents a photograph of writer Isaac Babel while a rubber is erasing it.

Odesa’s identity, its polyphony and its freedom are threatened by its own officials and a small but aggressive group of activists who have seized on a loosely worded law on the decolonisation of Ukraine which orders the “liquidation of symbols of Russian imperial policy to protect Ukraine’s cultural and informational space.” The result of this de-Russification is fear and polarisation.